Welcoming SolidWorks World 2010, Alibre makes $97 price permanent

Alibre mainly gets into the news for its pricing, with which it has been playing around ever since that mysterious X-CAD turned out to be a free version of Alibre Design. Prices up, prices down. It's enough to make a blogger reach for the Gravol.

To celebrate the start of SolidWorks World 2010, Alibre is today announcing "permanent"* price cuts. And dramatic, for all include Alibre Translate (formerly $499):

• Alibre Design Standard = $97 (originally $1,000) + $97/yr subscription

• Pro = $497 + $147/yr sub

• Expert = $997 + 197/yr sub

The reasoning? Alibre tells me they think this will appeal to the home and hobby market, engineers who want to tinker at home. But as with the iPad, the low price is just the teaser, for customers have to add annual maintenance fees to the total price at the till.

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*) Permanent, that is, until somebody at Alibre does a CADKEY and realizes how much money the company is leaving on the table by keeping all price levels this low -- and loosing $$$ on translation API licensing fees. I think it would have made more sense to price Pro higher at $1,495 and Expert at $2,495 (with Translate thrown in free), and make annual maintenance optional.

Comments

[Bricston]

Perhaps the reason that Alibre is priced so low is that Alibre is simply not the best software for the market they are targeting: hobbyist, solo designers and part time engineers. I bought Alibre. It is not simple to learn. I gave up trying to learn it when I picked up SpaceClaim which is as easy to learn as sketchup, but also has nurbs. It has a medium high price tag, but it's a better value for the solo engineer/"hobbyist". This is the Ipad generation of software. Ease of use and a appealing interface is just as importance as price.

[Jon Banquer]

Alibre is no value even for free.

Instead of focusing on price and hype from companies that offer an unsustainable pricing / development structure like Alibre does, I think it would make a lot more sense if the CAD press pushed companies like SpaceClaim, Kubotek (KeyCreator), IronCAD and VX on issues that are a lot more relevant to mechanical users.

An example of the kind or hard hitting questions the CAD press really should be focused on would be putting a company like SpaceClaim on the spot and asking when SpaceClaim will finally get the badly needed tools such as hole features and feature recognition so a hole wizard can be used. Hole features and hole recognition are exactly the kinds of tools that are badly needed by all mechanical users and are a hell of a lot more relevant in the real world.

On the other hand, Kubotek's KeyCreator has these kinds of hole tools but badly needs the push / pull technology user interface that SpaceClaim and Spatial pioneered. Kubotek (KeyCreator)should be put on the spot by the CAD press and asked when they will finally have the kind of user interface that SpaceClaim has and that's so enjoyable to use. The same question should be asked of VX.

[Bill]

I think this is a wonderful thing Alibre is doing. I have been using Alibre since version 7.0, and have found it to be very powerful and very easy to use. I especially believe that at an entry price of only $97 there is no value remotely like in all of CAD. I also think that learning Alibre is within the reach of most people. I believe it is spectacular news that parametric 3D CAD modeling is now within reach of most people.

[Pete]

I am an Alibre Design Pro 12 user, and after less than 2 weeks of self teaching myself, I found that I have become quite profficient with the tools. Complex assemblies and parts creation is a snap. My gripe is that the reporting/drawing output tools are lacking in feature, eas of use. On must consider an investment in full Adobe document writer rather than rely on the PDF forge included, youll rip your hair out gettings pages strait.